On one of our warmer, more humid days recently, I was taking a walk by myself at Sapsucker Woods bird sanctuary. This walk always feels meditative to me, except in deep summer when it is too buggy to enjoy.
On this spring day I wasn’t attacked by mosquitoes or flies, but gnats were about here and there, annoyingly flying in front of my face. I’d try to breathe in, stepping one, two, three—breathe out, one, two three—but my concentration was broken by these annoying specs flying at my face.
I was wearing sunglasses, thankfully, which mostly protected my eyes from attack. I wore a hat, too. All good defenses. But it was hard to stop myself from swiping at the gnats continually.
That’s no way to meditate. No way to enjoy a peaceful walk.
Then I remembered Adrian’s method: Come to me. When he went for a swim in icy cold water, he didn’t take a half hour to get used to the cold the way I did. He just opened his arms and swam into it, saying, “Come to me.”
He welcomed the cold—or any other challenge to his equanimity--with this simple method of embracing the unpleasantness until it became part of him and he didn’t feel it as alien any more.
Of course, these are my words interpreting his experience. But I saw it in action in his life.
So on my recent walk I thought of Adrian’s method and decided to try it myself. Instead of swatting at the gnats, I’d embrace them. “Come to me,” I thought, projecting the idea outwards toward the gnats.
But you need more than an idea or plain words. You need an intention. You need to feel your welcoming arms embracing the gnats in your heart.
I practiced, on and off, as the gnats gathered in places on my walk, and left me alone in other places.
I was relieved when a breeze blew the gnats away, giving me a reprieve.
I was annoyed with myself whenever I couldn’t stand it any longer and swatted at them.
How does one become accustomed to coexisting with gnats in your face all the time? By not having a choice, I imagined. By living with it day in and day out. By having larger issues, like hunger, to worry one.
The summer is just beginning. I’ll have plenty of opportunities to practice.
Lupines and peonies Adrian planted in our yard.
